


Knots

by sstwinz



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, One Shot, Sad, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 08:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14468817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sstwinz/pseuds/sstwinz
Summary: Finnick Odair has a lot of knots.This story is set just before the 75th Hunger Games (so in Catching Fire)!Originally written in 2016!





	Knots

**Author's Note:**

> This story is vaguely a followup to my story "Secrets", which I wrote two years before it. It's also a kind of rewrite of that story because I changed a lot of my ideas about Finnick's backstory for this one and improved them. So this story is much better than Secrets.
> 
> This story is set just before the 75th Hunger Games (so in Catching Fire)!

Finnick Odair had a lot of knots.

They lined his walls, the pieces of rope nailed in rows on the driftwood. He stood staring at them as he prepared to leave for what would likely be the last time. His house was quiet, and the knots had a stillness to them. Fraying at the edges and weathered, they seemed almost human. Finnick gazed at them. As he did, he saw the person who had tied each one.

Antheia Gaiux, perfection loop. Gave one of her five children to a family who couldn’t bear any. Vibia Jewel, savoy knot. Had forbidden meetings with a man from District 5 every week behind her husband’s back. Cyma Cloudmiller, bimini twist. Deeply indebted to her best friend and living off credit.

Each knot had a story, and though he had over three hundred, Finnick could remember them all. He remembered the faces of the women, and sometimes men, as they tied their knots, and he remembered the nights when they did it. Some memories were more painful than others, and he avoided some of the knots with his eyes, though he still kept them on the wall. It was important for him to have all of them hanging there as a reminder. There was a lot of himself hidden in there, ten years lost somewhere between monkey’s fists and dropper loops.

The worst part was that they thought it was a game. They giggled as he guided them through the steps and breathed a giddy sigh of relief when they were done and what they had revealed was ‘trapped forever’, one of his most popular lines. They were fine with giving out their deepest secrets to a young man from District 4 they had never met before that night. They thought it was funny, and he let them.

He hated it. Even though he asked them for their secret and touched their hands as they looped the rope and gravely swore to them that as long as the knot was tied he wouldn’t tell a soul, he hated all of it. He hated being responsible for so many people’s innermost thoughts and desires, he hated how they laughed it off, how  _ he _ laughed it off to make them comfortable and avoid the heaviness that came with keeping so many things private. It meant nothing to them, and he meant nothing to them either. He was a pleasant, easy-going, living and breathing object, a dumping ground for first their desires and then their worries. He made them feel better, lighter, their secrets transferred onto him. That's why some of them called him back.

He shuddered violently from memories and was brought back to his house. The knots hung on the wall, faded and completely ordinary. Meaningless to anyone but him. If he didn't come back, they'd take them down, throw them away. He felt the sudden urge to stuff them all in his bag and take them to the Capitol, but he stopped himself. What good would it do to bring them with him? Maybe if he left them behind he could let them go. Have a little time just for himself before he died.

Finnick gave the knots one last, long look before turning to go. He neared the doorway but paused just before exiting and abruptly turned back, his eyes finding one specific knot on the wall.

Emera Lavis, a simple overhand knot. The first knot. Asked for him to come to forget that her husband was out almost every night. He remembered that night vividly, how she'd looked at him strangely when he’d suggested it, how his hand had shaken as he’d helped her through the simple steps. After a while, the knot-tying became expected, his signature, but then it had just been a scared fourteen-year-old District 4 boy asking the Capitol for something unusual and unpredicted.

It would be good for him to remember how he had been back then, before the false confidence and overly charming personality. More real, more of himself. It made him sad to think about the change, but he wasn’t surprised. Ten years was a long time, and too many secrets for one boy.

He took the knot off the wall and turned to leave. It was lighter than he’d expected it to be.


End file.
